Blanket Castle or, The Uncaffeinated Ones
by whatthefoucault
Summary: Jamie sleeps in; mayhem ensues.


It was morning, or what passed for morning when travelling who knows where through time and space, which more or less rendered alarm clocks a touch meaningless. Regardless, thought Jamie McCrimmon, it would be quite all right to wilfully ignore the call to wakefulness and remain pillowed in the soft warmth of his bed, tucked safely between soft bouncy mattress and fluffy feather duvet. Yes, he thought, bed would be a very good way to spend the day.

It was then, with the sort of perfect timing that one came to expect from these sorts of things, that a gentle rapping came, a soft knocking that reverberated through the metal bedroom door and shook him into grudging wakefulness. He did his very best to ignore it.

"Jamie?" the Doctor called from the corridor.

"No," he groaned, burrowing further beneath the blankets.

"Are you all right in there?" shouted the Doctor.

"I'm asleep," replied Jamie. He willed with all the will he could muster in his half-conscious state that the Doctor would believe him and give up.

It was much to his sleepy irritation, then, when the room was flooded with sudden bright light and he was met with the sight of the Doctor standing, arms crossed, over him.

"Come on, Jamie, we've got things to do today," said the Doctor.

"Don't you ever just want a day off?" moaned Jamie. "Just to spend the whole day in bed?"

"But we've just landed on a planet that promises to be very exciting! It's absolutely splendid! Don't you want to explore?" reasoned the Doctor.

"Oh, aye, but surely the planet will still be here in the afternoon, Doctor," replied Jamie, defiantly rolling away from his bright-eyed tormentor.

"Come now Jamie, I must insist that you get up," said the Doctor, taking Jamie by the hand in an apparent attempt to pull him out of bed by gently persuasive force.

"No, I must insist that _you_ get back down," countered Jamie.

The Doctor tugged lightly at Jamie's wrist. Jamie yanked back in response, sending the Doctor tumbling onto the bed, collapsing on top of him with a loud grunt of surprise.

Jamie positively beamed at the Doctor's sudden and unintentional invasion of his castle of blankets. As the Doctor struggled to draw himself upright, Jamie struggled to draw him further in. The Doctor swatted impatiently at Jamie's hands as Jamie unrelentingly held on, arms cinched tight round the Doctor's waist, who flailed his limbs uselessly in the air like an overturned beetle.

"This is ridiculous!" exclaimed the Doctor, struggling to break free.

"Why don't you just give into the lure of Blanket Castle, you daft old man?" laughed Jamie.

"All right, all right," the Doctor finally agreed, and the pair collapsed in a fit of breathless giggles. Jamie settled back in beneath the warm duvet and smiled at the Doctor.

"You see what I mean now, don't you," he said.

"Yes, I think I can see the appeal," smiled the Doctor, toeing off his shoes as he flung his jacket into a corner of the room with a clatter of pockets. "Perhaps a little catnap wouldn't be so bad."

"Aye, it wouldn't be so bad at all. Good night, Doctor," said Jamie as the Doctor snuggled in beside him.

"Good night, Jamie," said the Doctor, as Jamie draped a sleep-heavy arm over him.

It was then, nestled in Blanket Castle, idly stroking the Doctor's hair, that the moment came - seemingly out of nowhere, but probably not out of nowhere at all - when the risk it took to remain perfectly still became far greater than the risk it took to move forward. This moment, it turned out, was as good as any. Be brave, Jamie, he told himself.

The kiss was so soft it was a moment before he realized he was doing it. The Doctor, in response, was quiet - and it seemed to Jamie that he must have been almost confused - then settled in with a sigh, his hand resting gently on Jamie's shoulder. The Doctor tasted sleepy and beautiful, like fresh strawberries in the sunshine. It felt familiar, almost normal, like the kind of comfortable that never got boring. It felt like things Jamie did not have the words for, or was too lost in the moment and feeling to search for words at all. He felt blanketed in warm light, like the universe was waking up, switching on, and everything at once came into full bloom. When Jamie opened his eyes, he was met with the Doctor, who regarded him with warm puzzlement.

"Jamie?" he whispered.

Perhaps, he wondered, this had been a terrible miscalculation. The Doctor had seemed a bit nonplussed for a moment there, if nonplussed was the word Jamie was looking for. He decided he would try it.

"Should I not have done that?" he asked, unable to conceal his concern. "You seem a wee bit nonplussed. Is nonplussed the word I'm looking for?"

Under most circumstances, his instinct under this degree of worry would be to reach out to the Doctor, and hold on for dear life. It was all he could do to exercise that painful ounce of restraint.

"Maybe," the Doctor said thoughtfully, his hand still resting unmoving over the thin cotton nightshirt covering Jamie's ribcage. "Surprised, more like. Not unpleasantly, mind you, but I didn't think -"

"What, that I fancied you?" beamed Jamie. "You know, Doctor, for such a clever fellow, you can be a wee bit thick sometimes."

"Jamie," the Doctor said quietly, carefully, "are you – "

"Aye," nodded Jamie with a small smile. "I am. Well, unless _you_ don't - "

"Oh my dear Jamie, isn't it obvious?" said the Doctor, folding his hands.

"Why didn't you say so, then?" whispered Jamie, as he brought his own hands to the Doctor's, stilling them.

The Doctor seemed about to reply, but hesitated, and said nothing. Instead he regarded Jamie with what seemed like a kind of heartbreaking wistfulness, as he brought one hand to cradle Jamie's blushing cheek.

"Oh, don't be daft, you lovely wee bampot," beamed Jamie. "Can I kiss you again?"

The Doctor said nothing, but drew near in response, smiling against Jamie's lips. This time it felt easy; it felt feverish and dizzying and right. It felt like it always felt with the Doctor; it felt safe and dangerous, brand new and perfectly familiar, like being alive and beautiful, like belonging.

Jamie was certain that there were rules where he came from, rules certainly against things like kissing strange centuries-old men from other worlds; but somehow, out in this little blue box spiraling into the unknown, with all of time and space to call their home, those rules – Scotland itself, perhaps even the earth – seemed so tiny in the grand scheme of life as to make those rules seem like nothing more than a distant memory, and certainly nothing worth paying any regard. This was an exceptional life, he thought as he quietly traced a fingertip down the Doctor's arm, and he was blessed to be spending it with the exceptional Doctor - _his_ exceptional Doctor. And there, nestled softly beneath Blanket Castle and inextricably wrapped round one another, they settled into their nap like a pair of tuckered-out kittens.

And the planet outside would still be there in the afternoon.

Victoria huffed her way through the TARDIS, padding down empty corridor after empty corridor in her housecoat and slippers, a woefully empty glass jar in one hand, the bone she had to pick with Jamie growing exponentially with each passing vacant room. At long last, she spied his bedroom door a sliver open, and his mop of brown hair poking out from under the duvet. Surely he could not still be asleep, she thought, not when they had landed on a new planet with an inevitable army of new beasties to be frightened of. Honestly.

"Jamie, somebody's used up the last of the instant coffee and put the empty jar back in the cupboard. Was that you?" she shouted into the room.

There was no response.

"Jamie?" she repeated.

Still nothing. She peered into the room, brow furrowed in concern.

"Jamie, are you - "

It was then that she noted that the number of feet poking out from the duvet's edge came to a sum of more than two, and the scattered debris trailing from the bed to what appeared to be a jacket-shaped lump by the wardrobe was a fairly good indicator as to the owner of two of them.

"Oh," she said quietly, the rather, shall we say, personal nature of the situation dawning on her. She excused herself from the doorway, blushing soft as an heirloom rose at the peak of its season.

It was several paces down the corridor before she turned back to glance once more at Jamie's door.

"I'm very happy for you both, but this doesn't mean I've forgiven you about the coffee!" she called back into the room, knowing entirely well that the two of them were far too lost in their own little wonderland to notice.


End file.
